Friday, February 9, 2018

Pro Bono Work

Pro bono work is important to me because I feel like it is the foundation of the legal profession. A lot of people come to law school because they want to “help people” without knowing what it truly takes to achieve that. In my experience, these very same people end up pursuing careers where, of course, to some capacity they “help people,” but certainly not in the way that they expected which is often social-justice-oriented. So, I feel like it’s important to preserve the spirit of wanting to “help people” through pro bono work. Because I’m a first year evening student, I don’t yet have the opportunity to begin chipping away at my pro bono requirement, but I have done some volunteer work with Neighborhood Legal Services in their Workers’ Rights Clinic and, even though I’m not interested in working in that field, it’s been a great experience and I look forward to doing similar work when I’m able to begin working on my pro bono hours. For me, this work has been integral to remembering why I came to law school, which can easily be lost amidst the stress of reading and exams. Knowing that I can give a few hours of my time and make a difference in someone else’s life is very, very powerful.